A little while back, I made a conscious decision to shift the bulk ofo political coverage to my substack page. There are a few reasons for that, but the primary one is to keep this one largely oriented toward guns and optics. The idea was to restrict political coverage here to 2A issues.
It is never a clear distinction, but I try.
Another was that the political world is all consuming and I wanted to relegate it to weekends only. Unless there is something truly momentous happening, I try to ignore the world of politics during weekdays and catch up during the weekends. That's why my substack coverage of the Iran war, for example, is restricted to mostly weekly attempts to make sense of the nonsense.
https://darklordofoptics.substack.com/
Of course, I always have a secondary purpose. Having learned my lesson on bans, shadowbans, and outright censorship over the years, if Substack goes totalitarian on me, I can shift what I normally do there to Locals and vice versa. A little paranoia goes a long way.
Going back to the gun related things, some of my long running plans are hitting a little bit of a snag this spring. It looks like I will need to have a minor abdominal surgery sooner than later and I have no idea what the recovery will look like. If all goes well, I will have a rough idea of the timing during this coming week.
That puts my plan to shoot the match in Wyoming in potential jeopardy, but hopefully not.
I was told that the recovery takes about six weeks and that I should avoid strenuous activity while recuperating. I plan to classify shooting an NRL Hunter match as non-strenuous activity and see where that takes me. As long as I am able to hike around a little, I can just shoot everything standing off of a tripod to minimize the probability of stitches coming out.
For the Hunter match in Wyoming, my original plan was to shoot with the same 6.5CM Fix wearing a 7-35x56 Tangent Theta and Hornady's factory 147gr ammo.
For the Hunter match in Virginia in May, I was hoping to test Grayboe's new Core stock, which fits my 6.5PRC Stag Pursuit. However, there is a delay in the manufacturing of the stock, so it won't get here until June.
Perhaps, that will be the one to take to the TRT Sniper match in Montana, although I am going to think about that a little more. If the barrel in my Fix is still alive by then, I might still just stick with it. It might be getting to tis last legs though by summer.
Grayboe has this new generation of stocks they are doing built around their mini-chassis that attracted my attention.
https://www.grayboe.com/products/universal-mini-chassis
While I am very much on the record that I think monoblock receivers are a better idea, the vast majority of the industry for legacy, logistical and logical reasons, runs on conventional barreled actions. I am always looking to see if someone has a better way to accommodate those and Grayboe's idea looks interesting. Essentially, they made a mini-chassis that bolts onto your action and stays there. Then they machine their stocks to match that minichassis perfectly. If you want to switch stocks between different Grayboe models, the mini-chassis stays bolted to the action and you swap the stock seamlessly and allegedly with no zero shifts.
For example, if I want to use my Stag Pursuit in 6.5PRC for a match or two, I can put it into a very solid forged carbon fiber Core stock.
https://www.grayboe.com/products/the-core
If I were to take the same rifle hunting, I can pop it out of the Core stock and put into the much lighter Halo stock.
https://www.grayboe.com/products/grayboe-halo-rifle-stock
Going from forged carbon fiber Core stock to forged fiberglass Halo stock immediately drops the weight by 3 lbs without changing anything else. Switching from a heavy match oriented bipod to light weight hunting ones gives me another two pounds (toughly). In other words, I can shed around five pounds of weight from this rifle by switching stocks and bipods without having to touch the optic.
The other interesting aspect of this approach is that you can use the same stock with different action types. For example, if I get their minichassis for the Pursuit action (R700 pattern) and another for my Tikka T3x, I can seamlessly switch stocks between these two very different actions.
The plan is to use S&B's excellent 3-18x42 FFP Meta on this gun as a crossover: https://eurooptic.sjv.io/DWVxo2
Looking at the timelines, I'll be doing these experiments in the summer.
Another rifle experiment is the structured barrel that I have been talking about a good bit recently. That will likely show up here at around the same time and will initially see use in local matches. When I visited Tacom, in order to see where the heat in that barrel goes, I rapidfired a 10round mag of 6.5CM at a plate around 360 yards away. The picture of the plate is attached. I pressed the trigger as rapidly as I could. The POA never moved off the plate, so it was pretty rapid. The barrel was still barely more than lukewarm and not uncomfortable to touch. Accuracy also seems to be there. The barrel that is going into my 6.5CM upper is currently in cryo. This is going to be really interesting. Structured barrels are expensive. For a fully machined and chambered barrel it seems to be in the ballpark of $2k. However, the barrel life they are seeing is substantially longer than that for conventional high end barrels. hat changes the value proposition. I'll continue digging into it. Given how vibrationally dead it is and how it manages heat, this might be THE right solution for an accurate semi-auto. With boltguns, it is probably a tougher sell for relatively conventional boltguns and calibers, but for larger overbore cartridges that generate a lot of heat, like 300NM, etc it might be a different story.
I am going to start with a large frame AR and go from there. The way they do structured barrels is a seemingly outlandish idea, but now that I have spent some time with them, I am quite enamored with the concept. They do all the machining in house, which is probably a big reason for the cost. On the other hand, they do it very well. I wonder if there is a viable way to scale up and bring the price down, but that's a conversation for another day.
Another experiment I am looking to do at some point is with Outlier's Backdraft system. For background, the guys who were behind Arken started Outlier on the side. Now that the optics part was restructured, they are out of the optics business and in the barrell/chassis/suppressor business.
They are using the volume of a sleeved barrel as a huge expansion chamber for initial sound suppression and for temperature control. The basic principle is very simple. Because the gasses exiting the muzzle do so very rapidly, it is essentially an adiabatic process. If you give it a lot of volume, pressure and temperature have to come down very fast. That potentially allows for tiny suppressors that do not get very hot. The chamber area of the barrel and all that still gets pretty hot. In most ways it is not particularly different from other sleeved barrels aside from using the space between the barrel and the sleeve as an expansion chamber. I've reached out to them. We'll see how it goes.
As an aside, since I assume there is no love lost between the new DNT/Arken and Outlier, now that they are separate companies, I am very curious if they will look to partner with any optics company for their guns. While, I've had a complicated relationship with Arken over the years, I do think that the Backdraft concept in Outlier barrels is very interesting and plan to test it one way or the other.
Switching back to optics, what little shooting I have been able to do lately has been primarily aimed at the MPVO segment, since I want to finish my review of the Element Theos 2-10x42. https://alnk.to/dWfYoIF
My original impressions have not changed: it is an exceptional scope with the only real weaknesses being the weight and the somewhat bulky windage turret that gets a little bit in the way of the offset dot. I have been messing with mounting options and I think now I have it set up just the way I want it. It is an exceptional scope overall.
On the other side of the MPVO range is the Primary Arms 1.5-12x36 that has been the subject of quite a few heated discussions (largely between people who have not seen it, but who am I to judge). https://alnk.to/cSLqvYh
In terms of mag range, size and weight, this is the purest expression of the MPVO idea yet. The downside is that it is intended to be used at distance with reticle holdovers only. I think that is an oversight, but since they designed the scope for easy configuration changes down the line, I hope they will have product line extensions. As is, the scope is light, handy and excellent optically and mechanically. The reticle is pretty easy to use and I got the hang of it, but at distance it is not fast at longer distance. Basically, it is not a reticle for precision guys who want to set up a light weight platform to shoot accurately fairly far away.
Theos 2-10x42 is much better configured for the crowd stepping down from their precision competition rigs to go play.
Primary Arms PLxC 1.5-12x36 is set up for AR guys who have been shooting their LPVOs and finding their limitations at distance. They are now looking to extend the range beyond what they do with LPVOs, but not adapt to what long range guys usually do. They are looking for that same "LPVO" experience, but better on mid/high magnifications. They will love this scope and it is set up for them.
I have a little bit of equity with both of those crowds and I have become rather fond of both Theos and PLxC, but they do have different appeal.
If I want to stretch my AR's legs out to 800 yards, I will go with Theos.
If the distances will stay more moderate and might involve clip-ons and such, I will lean toward the PLxC, especially if I have to carry this thing.
I am going to try to convince Primary Arms to extend the line-up a little bit. I would really like to see a version of this 1.5-12x36 scope with a single turn exposed zero stop turret and a simpler tree reticle so that the scope can be used with reticle holdover at closer distances and with dialing for a bit further out.
Basically, if I could get PLxC 1.5-12x36 with Theos-ish reticle and H6Xi-style elevation turret, I think that would be a perfect MPVO for my purposes.
That wraps it up for today. I'll keep you posted as all these projects move forward.
